The winner and placement of contestants in a fishing tournament is commonly determined on the basis of fish weight. The fishermen competing in the tournament may catch and "turn in" up to a specified number of fish, with the total weight of these fish determining the placement of the tournament contestants. In order to protect the fish population and retain the sporting aspect of the tournament, all fish caught are kept alive and released at the end of the tournament, or at the end of each day when the tournament lasts for multiple days. Furthermore, the maximum number of fish allowed to determine the total weight also dictates the maximum number of fish that a tournament fisherman may retain in the live well at any one time. Once the maximum number of fish has been placed in the live well, the fisherman must decide whether to release a fish caught thereafter or to release a fish in the live well and replace it with the new fish. Inasmuch as weight is the key factor, a fisherman will replace the lightest fish in his live well with a heavier fish subsequently caught once the maximum number of fish have been placed in the live well.
Efficiency is very important to tournament fishermen who must catch large numbers of fish, releasing them or rotating them with the fish in the live well to constantly increase the total weight of fish therein. For this reason, fishermen desire to spend the majority of their time casting out line and reeling in fish rather than determining which fish should be retained and which released. The common method for making this determination does little to facilitate the fisherman's need for speed and efficiency.
A fisherman may simply retain every fish of adequate size until the maximum number of fish are placed in the live well. Thereafter, the fishermen must weigh each new fish caught and, if it is of greater weight than the lightest fish in the live well, he must locate the lightest fish and release it in order to abide by the tournament rules. Determining the lightest fish in the live well may take a considerable amount of time and detract from the fisherman's ability to catch larger numbers of fish. First, the fisherman will "eyeball" and select a small fish from the live well and reweigh this fish in order to compare it to the fish he has just caught. This eyeballing method is inaccurate at best and may require the fisherman to weigh a large number of fish in order to locate the one with the smallest weight. With every larger fish caught, this method must be employed in order to ensure that the fisherman has retained the heaviest fish caught. All the time spent in making weight determination lessens the available time the fisherman can spend attempting to land larger fish.
Thus, there is a need in the art for a device which will assist a tournament fisherman in quickly assessing which fish in the live well should be released once a larger fish has been caught.